CAIRO — The highest-level inquiry into the deaths of nearly 900 protesters in Egypt’s uprising has concluded that police were behind nearly all the killings and used snipers on rooftops overlooking Tahrir Square to shoot into the crowds.
The report, parts of which were obtained by The Associated Press, is the most authoritative and sweeping account of the killings and determines that the deadly force used could only have been authorized by Hosni Mubarak’s security chief, with the ousted president’s full knowledge.
The report of the fact-finding commission, created by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, could weigh heavily in the upcoming retrial of Mubarak, as well as his security chief, former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, and six top police commanders. It is likely also to fuel calls for reforming the powerful security forces and lead to prosecutions of members of the police force.
The findings were leaked at a sensitive time for the country’s police. Still hated by most Egyptians, the force is in upheaval, with segments of police on strike and its chief, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, pleading not to drag it into politics. The force is also facing a challenge from Islamist groups threatening to set up “popular committees” to fill what they call a security vacuum created by the police strike.
Part of the force also is protesting what some officers see as an attempt by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood to control the force. The Brotherhood denies the charge.
The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, has repeatedly rejected charges that it bore responsibility for the killings in Cairo and other cities during the 18-day uprising that began Jan. 25, 2011, and ended with Mubarak stepping down. In contrast, the pro-democracy activists behind the uprising have long maintained that police were to blame.
The report was submitted to Morsi and the nation’s top prosecutor late last year. Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, has repeatedly vowed to seek retribution for the victims of the revolution and has ordered pensions and monetary compensation for families of the dead and wounded.
He has also decreed the creation of a special prosecution office to investigate and refer to trials criminal cases related to the uprising.
One of the report’s authors, lawyer and rights activist Mohsen Bahnasy, said he planned to submit relevant parts of the report to the prosecution in the Mubarak case as well as to other courts trying police officers charged with killing protesters. In the past two years, trials of police officers over protester killings have almost all ended with acquittals.
It is up to the top prosecutor to officially request that the report be included in the new Mubarak trial, said human rights lawyer Gamal Eid.
The 16-member fact-finding panel included rights activists, lawyers, judges and a representative from the military prosecutor’s office. It conducted about 400 interviews with police and witnesses.
The report went into extensive detail, citing police logs of the issuing of assault rifles and rounds of ammunition, and listing the officers who received them.
